Using a soundcard for a streaming audio source.

October 11, 2006 2:39 PM

I just got a webcam and in lieu of using audio from a microphone, I'd like to play music along with the streaming video. I can't figure out how to accomplish this though and I don't really know what I'm doing.

The camera in question is a Logitech QuickCam Pro 5000, which has been working pretty well for me so far. As I said above, I'd like to play music from winamp along with the video. Of course, I can accomplish this by playing it through speakers and letting the mic pick it up, but I'd like to skip the mic entirely and use the soundcard output as the audio source.

Now, I thought I could accomplish this by going into camera audio setup and selecting my soundcard under "Primary audio capture device" instead of the logitech microphone. But doing that and playing music doesn't show any volume reading at all.

I know there has to be a way to get this going, but I really have no freaking clue what I'm doing regarding audio capture sources.

posted by bob sarabia to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Sounds to me like it's expecting sound from the line-in port on your soundcard.

A quick, dirty, horrifying-to-audiophiles way to work around this without going to lots of trouble would be to take a 1/8" male to 1/8" male cable and connect the soundcard headphone output to the soundcard mic or line input. Make sure your volume isn't too high.
posted by bcwinters at 2:46 PM on October 11, 2006

Ah, figures it would be something obvious like that. Is there a solution that wouldn't piss off audiophiles?
posted by bob sarabia at 3:47 PM on October 11, 2006

It depends on the sound card. Some cards let you choose your wave-out as a recording device in the mixer. Than you can just play the music.

But not all cards support this.
posted by Mwongozi at 4:37 PM on October 11, 2006

Mines pretty old, and I don't think it supports that. For future reference, anyone got any suggestions for a good/cheap card to get around this issue.
posted by bob sarabia at 4:51 PM on October 11, 2006

Uh, there should be a question mark at the end of that last sentance.
posted by bob sarabia at 5:00 PM on October 11, 2006

Ok, I figured it out. I've never messed with any of this before so it took me a little bit.

Turns out I can record wave-out, I've just never known it. I went into sound and audio devices, audio tab and set the recording device to the sound card. Then I clicked on the "volume" button and selected wave as the source. I had it set on midi synth for some reason.

Then, I had to open the streaming cam app, which is flash, and right click on it to get to the flash settings. Then I had to click on the microphone tab and change it from the mic to the sound card.

Man, that was a pain in the ass.
posted by bob sarabia at 5:30 PM on October 11, 2006